drogue chute deploying snapped Slade back into the seat. His feet and the base of the capsule jerked up against the drag. Then the main canopy banged open, forcing Slade’s weight through the cushions and against the metal backing of the seat.
That was the point at which everything went to hell again.
It was probably nobody’s fault that the boat’s fuel-starved thrusters cut out a half second apart instead of simultaneously. That skewed impulse was enough to send the vessel rumbling at 90° to its programmed slant away from the capsule. If the timing had been slightly worse, the separated objects would have merged again and reached the planetary surface as an amalgam of metal and extruded flesh. Instead, the lifeboat rotated through the capsule’s parachute with the motion of a hawker winding cotton candy onto a cone. Then the vessel passed on, releasing the chute with a last playful tug. The fabric streamed behind the capsule. It was a shroud for Slade’s corpse and no longer a canopy that could slow his impact to a safe degree.
The castaway had a brief hint of what must have happened. The display whose pick-up had shown the canopy’s black fabric across the violet of space suddenly changed. It filled with the streaked white coating of the lifeboat’s belly. Then the black was gone and the white was a spark. Images spun to match the sudden fury of the capsule from which they were observed.
The digital displays went wild. The attitude arrow blurred from its own spinning and from Slade’s failing consciousness. He never wholly blacked out, but there was no task he could have accomplished had one been set him. Slade was at the point of a high-speed corkscrew. Centrifugal force darkened his face and hands with blood. Across him played the light of the downward screen. The screen was verdant with the image of a meadow through which the capsule would crush its path.
The first hint of relief was a tug too gentle to have been noticed, even if Slade had his full faculties. The canopy had been stopped from spinning, but it was some seconds before that stasis was transmitted through the line to brake the capsule’s own rotation. Even before that happened, there was a shift of perceived weight downward as Slade’s body translated deceleration into gravity. The unread altimeters that had been clicking off a descent of over fifty meters per second began to slow at an increasing rate. The capsule was being controlled as an angler controls the rush of a fish against a light line. The attitude arrow steadied into a sway that matched the way the globe rolled in the lower screen.
In the upper screen was a daisy-chain of four air cars, each with a line of the canopy looped over a stanchion. The cars were so light that even under full power they should not have been able to halt Slade’s plummeting descent. With intelligence and equal care, they had re-extended enough of the canopy to take the initial shock of deceleration. The cars must have dived nose-first to make the pick-up, but now their bellies were to the capsule and their fan modules were directed straight down. It would have taken skill and great strength to control such a vehicle with one hand and with the other to reach out into a two-hundred kph air-stream to snag the canopy.
Now that the descent was slow and controlled, the drivers leaned over to peer at the capsule between their vehicles and the black curve of the canopy. Either the pick-up lied, or Slade’s rescuers were a group of young girls.
CHAPTER NINE
Because the capsule was supported by four separately-controlled vehicles, it lurched the last hand’s-breadth to the ground. That was still a softer landing than many that Slade had made behind professionals . . . and only seconds before, he would have traded his hope of salvation for the chance to awaken in a hospital, much less to walk away from the capsule. There was a quick-release lever in the center of the panel in front of the seat. Slade was still
That was the point at which everything went to hell again.
It was probably nobody’s fault that the boat’s fuel-starved thrusters cut out a half second apart instead of simultaneously. That skewed impulse was enough to send the vessel rumbling at 90° to its programmed slant away from the capsule. If the timing had been slightly worse, the separated objects would have merged again and reached the planetary surface as an amalgam of metal and extruded flesh. Instead, the lifeboat rotated through the capsule’s parachute with the motion of a hawker winding cotton candy onto a cone. Then the vessel passed on, releasing the chute with a last playful tug. The fabric streamed behind the capsule. It was a shroud for Slade’s corpse and no longer a canopy that could slow his impact to a safe degree.
The castaway had a brief hint of what must have happened. The display whose pick-up had shown the canopy’s black fabric across the violet of space suddenly changed. It filled with the streaked white coating of the lifeboat’s belly. Then the black was gone and the white was a spark. Images spun to match the sudden fury of the capsule from which they were observed.
The digital displays went wild. The attitude arrow blurred from its own spinning and from Slade’s failing consciousness. He never wholly blacked out, but there was no task he could have accomplished had one been set him. Slade was at the point of a high-speed corkscrew. Centrifugal force darkened his face and hands with blood. Across him played the light of the downward screen. The screen was verdant with the image of a meadow through which the capsule would crush its path.
The first hint of relief was a tug too gentle to have been noticed, even if Slade had his full faculties. The canopy had been stopped from spinning, but it was some seconds before that stasis was transmitted through the line to brake the capsule’s own rotation. Even before that happened, there was a shift of perceived weight downward as Slade’s body translated deceleration into gravity. The unread altimeters that had been clicking off a descent of over fifty meters per second began to slow at an increasing rate. The capsule was being controlled as an angler controls the rush of a fish against a light line. The attitude arrow steadied into a sway that matched the way the globe rolled in the lower screen.
In the upper screen was a daisy-chain of four air cars, each with a line of the canopy looped over a stanchion. The cars were so light that even under full power they should not have been able to halt Slade’s plummeting descent. With intelligence and equal care, they had re-extended enough of the canopy to take the initial shock of deceleration. The cars must have dived nose-first to make the pick-up, but now their bellies were to the capsule and their fan modules were directed straight down. It would have taken skill and great strength to control such a vehicle with one hand and with the other to reach out into a two-hundred kph air-stream to snag the canopy.
Now that the descent was slow and controlled, the drivers leaned over to peer at the capsule between their vehicles and the black curve of the canopy. Either the pick-up lied, or Slade’s rescuers were a group of young girls.
CHAPTER NINE
Because the capsule was supported by four separately-controlled vehicles, it lurched the last hand’s-breadth to the ground. That was still a softer landing than many that Slade had made behind professionals . . . and only seconds before, he would have traded his hope of salvation for the chance to awaken in a hospital, much less to walk away from the capsule. There was a quick-release lever in the center of the panel in front of the seat. Slade was still
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